I just mentioned harmonious food and that’s a thought that needs to be expanded.

What I dislike the least about restaurants is that they serve lots of food, that’s kind of tastey, or maybe wonderful, but that is completely unbalanced. Lots of pasta and meat and not much else. Lots of tofu and rice and not much else.

This is less common in upscale Asian restaurants but quite common in all sorts of non-Asian restaurants.

My personal ethic and cooking belief is that all things on the plate should balance even if they wouldn’t go together traditionally. Not just protein, not just carbohydrates, not just fat, not just one overpowering taste but a complex counterbalance of all the tastes and textures and nutrition on that plate.

Everyone! Stop encouraging the bastards! Just because you can make an amazing sauce doesn’t mean the plate is right.

For instance, I mentioned Montana Avenue in the last post. I had a chicken sausage risotto with a port wine sauce. Each individual thing was nice, if heavy handed, the presentation was great, the experience…eh. Because the experience was monolithic and precise. How about tossing in a vegetable for crunch and color? How about layering flavors? How about thinking about the mouth experience not the bullshit idiot American restaurant expectation?

I know this is just me but I have a dream…I have a dream that the little fat Americans with their tiny minded tastes will one day wake up to…wonder. Food should delight not only feed. Come on people! Demand more from your restaurants and demand to be delighted!